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AMERICA 2000
An Education Strategy
"...making this land all
that it should be."
George Bush
A Message from the Secretary
The national education goals
adopted by President Bush and
the governors in 1990 are
ambitious-but worthy of a great
nation. The AMERICA 2000
Education Strategy described in
the pages that follow is a bold,
complex, and long-range plan to
move every community in America
toward those goals.
The AMERICA 2000 Education
Strategy has a language of its own.
One good way to begin reading
this booklet is to turn first to the
Glossary of Key Terms. In time,
these terms will become familiar to
the millions of people who are
needed to make America all that it
should be.
Lamar Alexander
Secretary of Education
April 18, 1991
Contents
1
Overview
5
The Challenge
9
America's Education Goals
The Four Part Strategy
11
I.
For Today's Students:
Better and More Accountable Schools
15
II.
For Tomorrow's Students:
A New Generation of American
Schools
19
III.
For the Rest of Us
(Yesterday's Students /Today's
Work Force): A Nation of Students
21
IV.
Communities Where Learning
Can Happen
23
Who Does What?
25
Glossary of Key Terms
29
Some Questions and Answers
Overview
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Overview
AMERICA 2000 is a long-term strategy to help make this land all
that it should be-a nine-year crusade to move us toward the six
ambitious national education goals that the president and the
governors adopted in 1990 to close our skills-and-knowledge gap.
The strategy anticipates major change in our 110,000 public and
private schools, change in every American community, change in
every American home, change in our attitude about learning.
This strategy is bold, complex and long-range. It will start
quickly-but results won't come quickly. It will occupy us at least
for the rest of this decade.
We already know the direc-
tion in which we must go; the
AMERICA 2000 strategy will
help us get there.
It will spur far-reaching changes in weary practices, outmoded
assumptions and long-assumed constraints on education. It will
require us to make some lifestyle changes, too. Yet few elements of
this strategy are unprecedented. Today's best ideas, dedicated
education reformers, impressive innovations and ambitious
experiments already point the way. We already know the direction
in which we must go; the AMERICA 2000 strategy will help us get
there.
AMERICA 2000 is a national strategy, not a federal program. It
honors local control, relies on local initiative, affirms states and
localities as the senior partners in paying for education and the
private sector as a vital partner, too. It recognizes that real educa-
tion reform happens community by community and school by
AMERICA 2000-1
school and only when people come to understand what they must
do for themselves and their children and set about to do it.
The federal government's role in this strategy is limited as-
wisely- its part in education always has been. But that role will be
played vigorously. Washington can help by setting standards,
highlighting examples, contributing some funds, providing
flexibility in exchange for accountability, and pushing and
prodding-then pushing and prodding some more.
The AMERICA 2000 strategy has four parts that will be pursued
simultaneously. They can be visualized as four giant trains-big
enough for everyone to find a place on board-departing at the
same time on parallel tracks on the long journey to educational
excellence. All four must move swiftly and determinedly if the
nation is to reach its destination:
1. For today's students, we must radically improve today's
schools, all 110,000 of them-make them better and
more accountable for results.
2.
For tomorrow's students, we must invent new schools
to meet the demands of a new century-a New Genera-
tion of American Schools, bringing at least 535 of them
into existence by 1996, and thousands by decade's end.
3.
For those of us already out of school and in the work
force, we must keep learning if we are to live and work
successfully in today's world. A "Nation at Risk" must
become a "Nation of Students."
4.
For schools to succeed, we must look beyond their
classrooms to our communities and families. Schools will
never be much better than the commitment of their
communities. Each of our communities must become a
place where learning can happen.
AMERICA 2000-2
Four big trains, moving simultaneously down four parallel
tracks: Better and more accountable schools; a New Genera-
tion of American Schools; a Nation of Students continuing to
learn throughout our lives; and communities where learning
can happen.
AMERICA 2000-3
The Challenge: America's Skills and
Knowledge Gap
Operation Desert Storm was a triumph of American character,
ability and technology-a victory for America and all it stands for.
The Challenge
It helped show that our nation can do whatever it decides to do-
and that our people can learn anything they need to learn.
Still, eight years after the National Commission on Excellence in
Education declared us a "Nation at Risk," we haven't turned things
around in education. Almost all our education trend lines are flat.
Our country is idling its engines, not knowing enough nor being
able to do enough to make America all that it should be.
As a nation, we now invest
more in education than in
defense.
Yet we're spending far more money on education. Total spending
for elementary and secondary schools more than doubled since
1980-while the number of students remained about the same. In
real terms, education spending increased approximately 33 percent
more per public school student. As a nation, we now invest more
in education than in defense. But the results have not improved,
and we're not coming close to our potential or what is needed.
Nor is the rest of the world sitting idly by, waiting for America to
catch up. Serious efforts at education improvement are under way
by most of our international competitors and trading partners. Yet
while we spend as much per student as almost any country in the
world, American students are at or near the back of the pack in
international comparisons. If we don't make radical changes, that
is where they are going to stay.
Meanwhile, our employers cannot hire enough qualified workers.
Immense sums are spent on remedial training, much of it at the
college level. Companies export skilled work-or abandon
AMERICA 2000-5
projects that require it.
Shortcomings are not limited to what today's students are learning
in school. The fact is that close to 85 percent of America's work
force in the year 2000 is already in the work force today. They are
the products of the same education system.
Perhaps 25 million adults are functionally illiterate. As many as 25
million more adult workers need to update their skills or knowl-
edge.
While more than 4 million adults are taking basic education courses
outside the schools, there is no systematic means of matching
training to needs; no uniform standards measure the skills needed
and the skills learned.
While the age of technology, information and communications
rewards those nations whose people learn new skills to stay ahead,
we are still a country that groans at the prospect of going back to
school. At best, we are reluctant students in a world that rewards
learning.
And there is one more big problem: Today's young Americans
spend barely 9 percent of their first eighteen years in school, on
average. What of the other 91 percent, the portion spent else-
where-at home, on playgrounds, in front of the television?
For too many of our children, the family that should be
their protector, advocate and moral anchor is itself in a
state of deterioration.
For too many of our children, such a family never existed.
For too many of our children, the neighborhood is a place
of menace, the street a place of violence.
AMERICA 2000-6
Too many of our children start school unready to meet the
challenges of learning.
Too many of our children arrive at school hungry,
unwashed and frightened.
And other modern plagues touch our children: drug use
and alcohol abuse, random violence, adolescent preg-
nancy, AIDS and the rest.
No civil society or compassionate nation can neglect the plight of
these children-in almost every case, innocent victims of adult
misbehavior.
But few of those problems are amenable to solution by government
alone, and none by schools alone. Schools are not and cannot be
parents, police, hospitals, welfare agencies or drug treatment
centers. They cannot replace the missing elements in communities
and families.
We tend to say that "the nation
is at risk, but I'm okay."
Schools can contribute to the easing of these conditions. They can
sometimes house additional services. They can welcome tutors,
mentors and caring adults. But they cannot do it alone.
At one level, everybody knows this. Yet few Americans think it
has much to do with them. We tend to say that "the nation is at
risk, but I'm okay." Complacency is widespread with regard to
one's own school, one's own children, one's own community.
This leaves us stuck at far too low a level, a level we ought not
tolerate. One of the lessons of the education reform movement of
the 1980s was that little headway can be made if few of us see the
need to change our own behavior. Yet few of us can imagine what
AMERICA 2000-7
a really different education system would look like. Few of us are
inclined to make big changes in familiar institutions and habits.
Until last year, few could even describe our education goals. As a
nation, we didn't really have any.
In 1990, the president and the governors adopted six ambitious
education goals. AMERICA 2000 is a strategy to achieve them.
AMERICA 2000-8
America's Education Goals
By the year 2000:
1. All children in America will start school ready to learn.
2. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90
percent.
3. American students will leave grades four, eight, and
The Goals
twelve having demonstrated competency in challenging
subject matter including English, mathematics, science,
history, and geography; and every school in America will
ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, SO
they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further
learning, and productive employment in our modern
economy.
4. U.S. students will be first in the world in science and
mathematics achievement.
5. Every adult American will be literate and will possess the
knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global
economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of
citizenship.
6. Every school in America will be free of drugs and
violence and will offer a disciplined environment condu-
cive to learning.
The four-part AMERICA 2000 Education Strategy will enable us to
achieve these goals.
AMERICA 2000-9
I.
For Today's Students: Better and More
Accountable Schools
Goals served: All six, but especially #2 (90 percent
graduate from high school),
#3 (competence in core subjects) and
#4 (first in the world in science and
mathematics).
Strategy: Through a 15-point accountability package, parents,
teachers, schools and communities can all be encouraged to
measure results, compare results and insist on change when the
results aren't good enough.
Specifics:
New World Standards: Standards will be developed, in conjunc-
tion with the National Education Goals Panel. These New World
Standards-for each of the five core subjects-will represent what
young Americans need to know and be able to do if they are to live
and work successfully in today's world. These standards will
incorporate both knowledge and skills, ensure that, when they
leave school, young Americans are prepared for further study and
the work force.
American Achievement Tests: In conjunction with the National
Education Goals Panel, a new (voluntary) nationwide examination
system will be developed, based on the five core subjects, tied to
the New World Standards. These tests will be designed to foster
good teaching and learning as well as to monitor student progress.
Encouragement to use the tests: Colleges will be urged to use
the American Achievement Tests in admissions; employers will be
urged to pay attention to them in hiring.
Presidential Citations for Educational Excellence: Citations will
be awarded to high school students who do well on American
Achievement Tests. Until those tests become available, Presiden-
tial Citations for Educational Excellence will be awarded based on
AMERICA 2000-11
Advanced Placement tests.
Presidential Achievement Scholarships: Once enacted by
Congress, these scholarships will reward academic excellence
among needy college and university students.
Report Cards on results: In addition it reports to parents on how
their children are doing, report cards will also provide clear (and
comparable) public information on how schools, school districts
and states are doing, as well as the entire nation. The national and
state report cards will be prepared in conjunction with the National
Education Goals Panel.
Report Card data collection: Congress will be asked to authorize
the National Assessment of Educational Progress regularly to
collect state-level data in grades four, eight and twelve in all five
core subjects, beginning in 1994. Congress will also be asked to
permit the use of National Assessment tests at district and school
levels by states that wish to do SO.
If standards, tests and report
cards tell parents and voters
how their schools are doing,
choice gives them the leverage
to act.
Choice: If standards, tests and report cards tell parents and voters
how their schools are doing, choice gives them the leverage to act.
Such choices should include all schools that serve the public and
are accountable to public authority, regardless of who runs them.
New incentives will be provided to states and localities to adopt
comprehensive choice policies, and the largest federal school aid
program (Chapter 1) will be revised to ensure that federal dollars
follow the child to whatever extent state and local policies permit.
AMERICA 2000-12
The school as the site of reform: Because real education improve-
ment happens school by school, the teachers, principals and parents
in each school must be given the authority-and the responsibil-
ity-to make important decisions about how the school will
operate. Federal and state red tape that gets in the way needs to be
cut. States will be encouraged to allow the leadership of individual
schools to make decisions about how resources are used, and
Congress will be asked to enact Education Flexibility legislation to
remove federal constraints that impede the ability of states to spend
education resources most effectively to raise achievement levels.
The Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and
other private groups representing the private sector are to be
commended-and encouraged-in their important efforts to create
state and local policy environments in which school-by-school
reform can succeed.
Merit Schools Program: Individual schools that make notable
progress toward the national education goals deserve to be
rewarded. Congress will be asked to enact a new program that will
provide federal funds to states that can be used as rewards for such
progress. States may "bank" those funds over several years to
create even more incentives for successful schools and teams of
school professionals.
Governors' Academies for School Leaders: Academies will be
established with federal seed money, SO that principals and other
leaders in every state will be able to make their schools better and
more accountable.
Governors' Academies for Teachers: Academies will also be
established with federal seed money, SO that teachers of the five
core subjects in every state will be ready to help their students
attain the New World Standards and pass the American Achieve-
ment Tests.
Differential teacher pay: Differential pay will be encouraged for
those who teach well, who teach core subjects, who teach in
AMERICA 2000-13
dangerous and challenging settings, or who serve as mentors for
new teachers.
Alternative teacher and principal certification: As part of the
AMERICA 2000 Excellence in Education Act of 1991, Congress
will be asked to make grants available to states and districts to
develop alternative certification systems for teachers and principals.
New college graduates and others seeking a career change into
teaching or school leadership are often frustrated by certification
requirements unrelated to subject area knowledge or leadership
ability. This initiative will help states and districts to develop
means by which individuals with an interest in teaching and school
leadership can overcome these barriers.
Honor teachers: The federal government will honor and reward
outstanding teachers in all five of the core subjects with Presidential
Awards for Excellence in Education.
AMERICA 2000-14
II. For Tomorrow's Students: A New
Generation of American Schools
Goals served: All six. In fact, they are the principal
standards against which every New
American School will be measured.
Strategy:
We will unleash America's creative genius to invent and establish
a New Generation of American Schools, one by one, community
by community. These will be the best schools in the world, schools
that enable their students to reach the national education goals, to
achieve a quantum leap in learning, and to help make America all
that it should be.
A number of excellent projects and inspired initiatives already
point the way. These include Washington State's Schools for the
21st Century, Theodore Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools,
James Comer's School Development Program, Henry Levin's
Accelerated Schools, RJR Nabisco's Next Century Schools, the
Saturn School of Tomorrow in St. Paul, and other commendable
efforts.
But this strategy goes beyond what these pioneers have begun. It
enlists communities-aided by the best research and development
the nation is capable of-in devising their own plans to break the
mold and create their own one-of-a-kind high-performance
schools. It relies on clear, rigorous measures of success-the New
World Standards and American Achievement Tests discussed
under Part I. The goal is to bring at least 535 such schools into
existence by 1996. And it calls on leaders at all levels to join in this
effort.
Specifics:
Research and development: America's business leaders will
establish-and muster the private resources for-the New Ameri-
can Schools Development Corporation, a new nonprofit organiza-
tion that will award contracts in 1992 to three to seven R & D
AMERICA 2000-15
think tanks, school innovators, management consultants, and
others. The president will ask his Education Policy Advisory
Committee, as well as the Department of Education, to examine
the work of these R & D Teams (and similar break-the-mold
school reform efforts), and to report regularly on their progress to
him and to the American people.
New American Schools: The mission of the R & D Teams is to
help communities create schools that will reach the national
education goals, including New World Standards (in all five core
subjects) for all students, as monitored by the American Achieve-
ment Tests and similar measures. Once the R & D is complete and
the schools are launched, the operating costs of the New American
Schools will be about the same as those of conventional schools.
R&D Teams can be expected
to set aside all traditional
assumptions about schooling
and all the constraints that
conventional schools work
under.
Breaking the Mold: The R & D Teams-and the communities and
states with which they work-can be expected to set aside all
traditional assumptions about schooling and all the constraints that
conventional schools work under. They will naturally need to
consider the policy environment within which schools can thrive.
Time, space, staffing and other resources in these new schools may
be used in ways yet to be imagined. Some schools may make
extensive use of computers, distance learning, interactive video-
discs and other modern tools. Some may radically alter the custom-
ary modes of teaching and learning and redesign the human
relationships and organizational structures of the school. Whatever
their approach, all New American Schools will be expected to
produce extraordinary gains in student learning.
AMERICA 2000-16
Note: A New American School does not necessarily mean new
bricks-and-mortar. Nor does a New American School have to rely
on technology; the quality of learning is what matters.
AMERICA 2000 Communities: The president will call on every
community in the land to do four things: adopt the six national
education goals for itself, establish a community-wide strategy for
achieving them, develop a report card for measuring its progress,
and demonstrate its readiness to create and support a New Ameri-
can School. Communities that accept this challenge will be
designated (by the governors of their states) as "AMERICA 2000
Communities."
The First 535+ New American Schools: Each AMERICA 2000
Community may develop a plan to create one of the first 535+
New American Schools with limited federal support for start-up
costs. In that plan, they will be expected to suggest their own
answer to the question: What would it take to develop the best
school in the world in this community, a school that serves the
children of this community while also meeting the national
education goals?
Governors, in conjunction with the secretary of education, will
review these community-developed plans, with the assistance of a
distinguished advisory panel, and will determine which
AMERICA 2000 communities in each state will receive federal
help in starting New American Schools. At least one New Ameri-
can School will be created in each congressional district by 1996.
This distribution assures that every type of community in every
part of the country will have the chance to create and establish one
of the first 535+ New American Schools. The governors and the
secretary will take added care to make sure that many such schools
serve communities with high concentrations of "at-risk" children.
Funding: American business and other donors will make sufficient
funds available through the New American Schools Development
Corporation to jump-start the R & D Teams-at least $150-200
AMERICA 2000-17
million. Congress will be asked to provide one-time grants of $1
million to each of the first 535+ New American Schools to help
cover their start-up costs. State, local, and private sources will
enable thousands more such schools to begin by the end of the
decade.
Bringing America On-Line: The secretary, in consultation with
the President's Science Advisor and the Director of the National
Science Foundation will convene a group of experts to help
determine how one or more electronic networks might be designed
to provide the New American Schools with ready access to the best
of information, research, instructional materials and educational
expertise. The New American School R & D Teams will be asked
for their recommendations on the same question. These networks
may eventually serve all American schools as well as homes,
libraries, colleges and other sites where learning occurs.
AMERICA 2000-18
III. For the Rest of Us (Yesterday's Students/
Today's Work Force): A Nation of
Students
Goals Served: All six, but especially #5 (adult literacy,
citizenship, and ability to compete in the
workplace).
Strategy:
Eighty-five percent of America's work force for the year 2000 is
already in the work force today, SO improving schools for today's
and tomorrow's students is not enough to assure a competitive
America in 2000. And we need more than job skills to live well in
America today. We need to learn more to become better parents,
neighbors, citizens and friends. Education is not just about making
a living; it is also about making a life.
That is why the president is challenging adult Americans to "go
back to school" and make this a "Nation of Students." For our
children to understand the importance of their own education, we
must demonstrate that learning is important to grown-ups, too. We
must ourselves "go back to school." The president is urging every
American to continue learning throughout his or her life, using the
myriad formal and informal means available to gain further
knowledge and skills.
III
Education is not just about
making a living; it is also about
making a life.
Specifics:
Private-Sector Skills and Standards: Business and labor will be
asked to adopt a strategy to establish job-related (and industry-
specific) skill standards, built around core proficiencies, and to
AMERICA 2000-19
develop "skill certificates" to accompany these standards. The
president has charged the secretaries of Labor and Education to
spearhead a public-private partnership to help develop voluntary
standards for all industries. Federal funds are being sought to assist
with this effort, which will be informed by the work of the Labor
Department's Commission on Work-Based Learning and the
Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills.
Skill Clinics: The strategy will promote one-stop assessment and
referral Skill Clinics in every large community and work-site,
including many federal agencies. In the Skill Clinics, people can
readily find out how their present skills compare with those they'd
like to have-or that they need for a particular job-and where
they can acquire the skills and knowledge they still need.
Federal Leadership: Federal agencies will set an example for
other employers by embarking upon a government-wide program
of skill upgrading. The president has asked the director of the
Office of Personnel Management to lead this important initiative.
Recommitment to Literacy: The nation's efforts will be
strengthened by developing performance standards for all federally
aided adult education programs and holding programs accountable
for meeting them; by expanding the National Adult Literacy
Survey SO that we have better information on a regular basis about
the condition of literacy among adults. The administration will
also work with Congress and the governors to enact sound literacy
and adult education legislation.
National Conference on Education for Adult Americans: A
major conference will be called to develop a nationwide effort to
improve the quality and accessibility of the many education and
training programs, services and institutions that serve adults.
AMERICA 2000-20
IV. Communities Where Learning Can
Happen
Goals Served: All six, but especially #1 and #6
(children starting ready to learn) and
(drug- and violence-free schools).
Strategy:
Even if we successfully complete the first, second and third parts
of the AMERICA 2000 education strategy, we still will not have
done the job. Even with accountability embedded in every aspect
of education, achieving the goals requires a renaissance of sound
American values-proven values such as strength of family,
parental responsibility, neighborly commitment, the community-
wide caring of churches, civic organizations, business, labor and
the media.
It's time to end the "no fault" era of heedlessness and neglect, and
as we shape tomorrow's schools, to rediscover the timeless values
that are necessary for achievement.
Government at every level can play a useful role, and it is incum-
bent upon all of us to see that this is done efficiently and ad-
equately. But much of the work of creating and sustaining healthy
communities, communities where education really happens, can
only be performed by those who live in them: by parents, families,
neighbors and other caring adults; by churches, neighborhood
associations, community organizations, voluntary groups and the
other "little platoons" that have long characterized well-function-
ing American communities. Such groups are essential to the
building of relationships that nurture children and provide them
people and places to which they can turn for help, for role models
and for guidance.
IV
Specifics:
AMERICA 2000 Communities: The president is challenging
every city, town and neighborhood in the nation to become an
AMERICA 2000 Community by:
AMERICA 2000-21
(1) Adopting the six national education goals for itself
(2) Establishing a community-wide strategy for achieving
them
(3) Developing a report card for measuring its progress
(4) Demonstrating its readiness to create and support a New
American School
Designation by Governors: Designation as an AMERICA 2000
Community will be made by the governors, with 535+ of them
getting help in creating the first New American Schools by 1996.
Recognition: The president and the administration will promote
AMERICA 2000 Communities with national attention to and
rewards for community planning and progress with special
emphasis on their creation in areas of concentration of at-risk
children.
The Cabinet: The Domestic Policy Council's Economic
Empowerment Task Force, working with the National Governors'
Association and other state and local officials, will seek ways to
maximize program flexibility and effectiveness in meeting the
needs of children and communities, including streamlined
eligibility requirements for federal programs, better integration of
services, and reduced red tape.
Individual Responsibility: Increased attention will be focused on
adult behavior, responsibility for children, and family and
community values essential for strong schools-including parents
as teachers of their children and parents as school partners.
AMERICA 2000-22
Who Does What?
Who Does What?
The four-part AMERICA 2000 strategy depends upon the strong
and long-term commitment of all Americans.
The President, the Department of Education and the entire
Cabinet will help keep the focus on this strategy, will spotlight
areas of trouble as well as examples of excellence, will reward
progress and spur change.
The Congress will need to pass the AMERICA 2000 Excellence
in Education Act, containing most of the federal initiatives in
support of this strategy. Since most of the important changes need
to occur outside Washington, we hope that every member of
Congress will also press for the kinds of state and local changes
that need to be part of this strategy, foster the establishment of
AMERICA 2000 Communities in their states and districts, and
serve as mentors to the New American Schools in their districts.
The Governors, too, are key. They will designate the AMERICA
2000 Communities. They (with the secretary of Education) will
decide where the first 535+ New American Schools are located.
With their legislatures, they will have the opportunity to support
the new schools as they do the old. They will catalyze the creation
of Governors' Academies for School Leaders and Governors'
Academies for Teachers of core subjects. In no state is an Educa-
tion President or federal program as important as a committed
Education Governor.
The Business Community is also vital. It will jump start the
R & D Teams that will design the New American Schools. It will
use the American Achievement Tests in hiring decisions, will
develop and use its own skill standards and-perhaps most
important-will provide people and resources to help catalyze
needed change in local schools, communities and state policies.
And at the community level, it will take all of us-principals,
teachers, students, business, office-holders, the media, the medical
and social service communities, civic and religious groups, law
AMERICA 2000-23
enforcement, caring adults and good neighbors-to cause the
planning and follow-through that every AMERICA 2000 Commu-
nity will need.
Most of all, it will take America's parents-in their schools, their
communities, their homes-as helpers, as examples, as teachers, as
leaders, as demanding shareholders of our schools-to make the
AMERICA 2000 education strategy work-to make this land all
that it should be.
AMERICA 2000-24
Glossary of Key Terms
American Achievement Tests: The anchor for a new system of
voluntary national examinations at the fourth, eighth and twelfth
grades in each of the five core subjects, tied to the New World
Glossary
Standards.
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy: An action plan to
move America toward the six national education goals through a
populist crusade, by assuring accountability in today's schools,
unleashing America's genius to jump-start a new generation of
American schools, transforming a "Nation at Risk" into a "Nation
of Students," and nurturing the family and community values
essential to personal responsibility, strong schools and sound
education for all children.
AMERICA 2000 Communities: Communities, designated by the
governors, that meet the president's four-part challenge: that (1)
adopt the six national education goals for themselves, (2) create a
community-wide plan for achieving them, (3) develop a Report
Card to measure their progress, and (4) demonstrate their readi-
ness to create and support a New American School. 535+ such
communities will open New American Schools by 1996.
Better and More Accountable Schools: A 15-part improvement
package for today's schools, designed to move America toward
the six national education goals, including New World Standards,
American Achievement Tests, Report Cards and school choice.
Federal Role: While the federal government's role in education
is and should remain limited, the administration is committed to
providing R & D, assessment and information, assuring equal
opportunity and, above all, leading the nationwide effort to
achieve the six education goals.
535+ by 1996: At least 535 New American Schools will be up
and running in AMERICA 2000 Communities across the coun-
try-at least one in each congressional district-by 1996, as well
as in Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories.
AMERICA 2000-25
From a "Nation at Risk" to a "Nation of Students": Adults-
today's work force-"go back to school" for further study, to
learn a new skill to help them earn their living, or to acquire
additional knowledge to help them live a better life.
Governors' Academies for School Leaders: State or regional
Academies catalyzed with federal seed money, that train princi-
pals and other school leaders in the design and execution of school
improvement strategies, accountability mechanisms, and school-
site management.
Governors' Academies for Teachers: State or regional Acad-
emies in each of the five core subjects, catalyzed with federal seed
money, that train teachers in the five core subjects to ensure that
they possess the knowledge, the skills, and the tools they need to
help students meet the New World Standards and do well on the
American Achievement Tests.
Job Skill Standards and Job Skill Certificates: Standards to be
established jointly by employers and labor for each industry,
beginning with the fundamental categories and definitions
developed by the Department of Labor's SCANS Commission,
that will assist workers to see what skills are needed to perform a
job and to evaluate their own grasp of those skills. Certificates
will be given (by the private sector) to those who acquire the skills
and meet the standards.
New American Schools Development Corporation: A non-
profit, non-governmental organization, created by American
business leaders and other private citizens, that will receive funds,
sponsor a competition and establish, support and monitor three to
seven R & D Teams. The mission of these teams is to help
AMERICA 2000 Communities invent and create their own new
American schools.
New Generation of American Schools: Major nationwide effort
to invent and create 535+ schools by 1996 (and many more
AMERICA 2000-26
thereafter) that are the best in the world. Located in AMERICA
2000 Communities, these schools will reach the national education
goals at operational costs not exceeding those of conventional
schools.
New World Standards: Definitions of what American students
should be expected to know and be able to do upon completion of
schooling, meant to function as benchmarks against which student
and school performance can be measured.
Populist Crusade: A national crusade led by the president-
school by school, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by
community-to transform American education and to spur
fundamental changes in the ways we educate ourselves and our
children. It also will be a restoration of what we think is important,
a homecoming in sound values and community attitudes.
R & D Teams: Partnerships of corporations, universities, think
tanks, school innovators, management consultants and others,
selected through a competitive process by the New American
Schools Development Corporation to receive up to $30 million
each over three years to conceptualize and invent New American
Schools.
Report Cards: A public reporting system on the performance of
education institutions and systems, providing maximum informa-
tion at the school, district, state and national levels.
School as the Site of Reform: The individual school is
education's key action-and-accountability unit. The surest way to
reform education is to give schools and their leaders the freedom
and authority to make important decisions about what happens,
while being held accountable for making well-conceived efforts at
improvement and for achieving desired results.
Skill Clinics: Just as health clinics diagnose health and refer
people to appropriate care, skill clinics will be centers in every
AMERICA 2000-27
community and large workplace where people can go to get their
own job skills evaluated, find out what skills they need to learn to
hold a certain job or get a better one, and find out where they can
go to gain those skills.
Skills and Knowledge Gap: Too many of us lack the knowl-
edge-especially of English, mathematics, science, history and
geography-and the skills necessary to live and work successfully
in the world as it is today.
Unleash America's Genius: Bringing the best minds and creative
energies from education, technology, management and other fields
together in a pioneering effort to create a New Generation of
American Schools that are the best in the world.
AMERICA 2000-28
Some Questions and Answers
Q. How much will the AMERICA 2000 plan cost?
A. The Department of Education will support appropriate activi-
ties under existing programs in this year's budget to get
AMERICA 2000 off the ground-and the president is requesting
$690 million for the strategy in the 1992 budget. That does not
include programs in many other departments (e.g. Labor, HHS,
HUD), which are essential to the success of AMERICA 2000. Nor
does it include the $150-200 million from the business community
Q&A
to jump-start the New American Schools R&D Teams.
But two other points need to be made. First, state and local
governments provide more than 90 percent of all education
funding-a responsibility both the president and the governors
have concluded should not be altered. But AMERICA 2000 is not
expected to raise state or local spending.
Second, both state/local funding and federal funding have in-
creased dramatically in recent years without significant results.
Since 1980, public funding is up 33 percent per student (after
inflation). The answer does not lie in spending more money on old
ways-but to redirect our resources and our energies to new
approaches.
Nobody says education is free,
but ingenuity, commitment and
accountability matter more
than money.
With state, local and private sources doing their parts, and the
federal government doing its, the elements of this strategy that
may need money will have what they require. Excellent schools,
let's remember, don't have to cost more than mediocre ones.
Nobody says education is free, but ingenuity, commitment and
accountability matter more than money.
AMERICA 2000-29
Q. Aren't the New American Schools going to be more expen-
sive than today's schools?
A. No. It will be a requirement for the R & D Teams that the new
schools they design can operate at costs no more than conventional
schools.
Q. Is the R & D for New American Schools likely to stress
technology and glitz rather than teaching and learning?
A. Schools should certainly avail themselves of the help that
technology can furnish. (Some say that schools are one of the few
institutions in society largely untouched even by the Industrial
Revolution, much less by the Information Age.) But technology is
no cure-all for educational and social problems. Great schools are
built by people, people who care and who act. A great school is one
where adults teach children sound values and good character as
well as knowledge and skills. Their secret ingredient is human, not
electronic.
We expect that the R & D Teams will begin by erasing all conven-
tional assumptions and constraints about schooling: the schedule
(and calendar), curriculum, class size, the pace of learning, teacher/
student ratios, adult roles, teacher recruitment, health and nutrition,
discipline, staff development, organizational and management
structures, resource allocation, students-as-tutors, the nature of
instructional materials, and much more.
Q. Why should there be only 535+ New American Schools?
A. We want there to be thousands. These are just the first 535+. In
time there could be 110,000. We believe-and hope-that many
states and communities will move quickly toward their own New
American Schools.
Q. What's the plus sign in "535+?"
A. We propose to provide federal start-up funds not just for one
New American School for every Senator and Representative that a
state has, but also for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the
U.S. territories.
AMERICA 2000-30
Q. Is it worth becoming an AMERICA 2000 Community if you
don't win one of the first 535+ New American Schools?
A. It sure is. Every neighborhood, town or city that cares about its
kids, its schools and its future will want to become an AMERICA
2000 Community. The act of creating such a community-by
meeting the president's four-part challenge-will itself do im-
mense good. Consider, for example, what it means to devise a
community plan to ensure that all children enter school ready to
learn that all the schools are safe and drug free that all adults will
be literate. We predict that, by the year 2000, there will be literally
thousands of AMERICA 2000 Communities. They will be the
pace-setters, the beacons, the heartbeat of this education strategy-
and of their children's future.
Q. Will choice apply to private schools as well as public? Will
it apply to religiously affiliated schools?
A. It will apply to all schools except where the courts find a
constitutional bar. The power of choice is in the parents' leverage
both to change schools and to make change in the schools. The
definition of "public school" should be broadened to mean any
school that serves the public and is held accountable by a public
authority.
Q. What do you say to those who argue that school choice
mainly benefits the well-to-do and the white?
A. Rich parents, white and non-white, already have school choice.
They can move, or pay for private schooling. The biggest benefi-
ciaries of new choice policies will be those who don't now have
any alternatives; with choice they can find a better school for their
children or use that leverage to improve the school their children
now attend.
Q. Aren't the places that most need radical changes in their
arrangements for children-those with the highest concentra-
tions of at-risk girls and boys-those least able to make such
changes?
A. It has been demonstrated in a number of communities that we
must never underestimate the effectiveness of a community that
AMERICA 2000-31
decides to transform itself. It's true, of course, that the AMERICA
2000 strategy can do the greatest good for troubled rural and inner-
city areas, and we all need to be sure that they get whatever
catalyst help they need to take part.
Q. Will the American Achievement Tests compete with the
work of the National Education Goals Panel?
A. No, we expect to follow the Panel's lead in developing the New
World Standards and the American Achievement Tests.
Q. Do national tests mean a national curriculum?
A. No-although surveys and polls indicate that most Americans
have no objection to the idea of a national curriculum. The
American Achievement Tests will examine the results of educa-
tion. They have nothing to say about how those results are
produced, what teachers do in class from one day to the next, what
instructional materials are chosen, what lesson plans are followed.
They should result in less regulation of the means of education-
because they focus exclusively on the ends.
Q. When will the new tests be ready?
A. In 1994, we will have available a system of high quality
individual tests, at least in reading, writing and mathematics-
education's traditional "three R's"-for states and localities that
want them. Because the new American Achievement Tests
probably cannot be perfected that quickly, we will ask Congress to
authorize the rapid deployment of an individual version of tests
used by the existing National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Q. Do we really need another test? Aren't tests biased against
minorities?
A. A nationwide system of high quality national exams-more
than one version, but calibrated to the same standards-will
probably begin to take the place of some of today's numerous
testing schemes. As for bias, the new tests will be screened to
eliminate it. Bear in mind that minority parents also want to know
how well their children-and the schools their children attend-are
doing in relation to the national education goals and standards.
AMERICA 2000-32
Sometimes less-than-satisfactory news serves to catalyze needed
changes.
Q. Can all six national goals really be reached?
A. They are all ambitious. Some, like literacy for all adults, and
leading the whole world in math and science, are very challeng-
ing. But each is a worthy national objective, and we should not
rest until all are achieved. The AMERICA 2000 strategy will give
us the tools we need to achieve them.
It's another of those historic
American challenges-and it
starts in every community,
every school, every household.
Q. How much of this is just politics?
A. Better education benefits the entire nation, not one particular
political party. AMERICA 2000 is a non-partisan education reform
strategy. There is plenty of room on these four trains for every
American, and we begin with the assumption that everyone will
want to climb aboard. Sure, we'll argue about the details in the
formal political process and elsewhere, and the strategy will
doubtless be improved through those arguments. But let's talk
them through in a spirit of wanting a first-rate education for all our
children, in every corner of this great land.
Q. What's the single most important part of the AMERICA
2000 strategy?
A. The most controversial may be school choice-at least until it's
well understood. The knottiest is probably standards-and-testing,
which is technically quite complex. The most dramatic is the R &
D for New American Schools. But the most important may be the
AMERICA 2000 Communities! Washington cannot achieve the
six education goals for the country; that has to happen at the local
level. It's another of those historic American challenges-and it
starts in every community, every school, every household.
AMERICA 2000-33
Q. What can parents do to help?
A. A thousand things. They are the keys to their children's
education, and there is no part of the AMERICA 2000 strategy in
which they do not have an important role. As for what they can do
today-they could read a story to their children, check to see that
tonight's homework is done, thank their child's teacher, talk with
their teachers and principals about how things are going in school,
and set some examples for their children of virtuous, self-disci-
plined and generous behavior.
Q. What can the media do to help?
A. Recognize that education is an ongoing story every day-a
local story and a national story. The details are seldom dramatic.
But this is the challenge that will tell the story of America's future.
By focusing on the story every day, and assigning their best to
cover it, the media can help win the battle.
AMERICA 2000-34
For further information, contact
U.S. Department of Education
1-800-USA-LEARN
(1-800-872-5327)
U.S. Department of Education
AMERICA 2000
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202-0498
ED/OS91-13